aditya
14:32
APTI PLUS Current Affairs Monthly Magazine November 2021
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Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Daily Current Affairs, 23rd November 2021
aditya
23:23
1) President Kovind presents Vir Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra
President of India, Ram Nath Kovind presented Gallantry Awards and Distinguished Service Decorations in Defence Investiture Ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Gallantry Awards have been instituted by the Government of India to honour the acts of bravery and sacrifice of the officers/personnel of the Armed Forces as well as other lawfully constituted forces and civilians. The order of precedence of these awards is Vir Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra.
Vir Chakra:
•Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman was accorded the Vir Chakra by President Ram Nath Kovind for his role in pushing back Pakistan’s fighter jets in February 2019. Abhinandan Varthaman was Wing Commander then. In the ensuing aerial dogfight, he shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter aircraft on February 27, 2019.
Kirti Chakra
•President Kovind accorded the second-highest peacetime gallantry award Kirti Chakra (posthumously) to Sapper Prakash Jadhav for neutralising terrorists in an operation in Jammu and Kashmir. His wife and mother received the award.
Shaurya Chakra
•Major Vibhuti Shankar Dhoundiyal was accorded the Shaurya Chakra (posthumously) for his role in an operation where five terrorists were eliminated and 200 kg explosive material was recovered. His wife Lt Nitika Kaul and mother received the award.
•Naib Subedar Sombir was accorded the Shaurya Chakra posthumously for killing an A++ category terrorist during an operation in Jammu and Kashmir. His wife Suman Devi and mother Rajendra Devi received the honour.
•The President also conferred the Shaurya Chakra to Major Maheshkumar Bhure who is an alumnus of Sainik School Satara. According to the citation, Major Bhure led an operation in which six top terrorist commanders were killed.
2) Education Minister launches Centres For Nanotechnology at IIT Guwahati
•Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated the state-of-the-art Centre for Nanotechnology and Centre for Indian Knowledge System at IIT Guwahati. He also released a book on NEP 2020 implementation. Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu was present on the occasion. IIT Guwahati has achieved excellent rankings in the various national and international ranking systems.
3) Odisha celebrated ‘Boita Bandana’ Festival on Karthika Purnima
•On Karthika Purnima, which is also known as Boita Bandana is celebrated at various water bodies of Odisha. The festival is the maritime tradition that is celebrated as a testament to the maritime trade history of Kalinga, tradesmen and mariners known as sadhabas travelled on boitas (boats) to trade with distant island nations that share borders with the Bay of Bengal like Indonesia, Java, Sumatra and Bali.
4) 8,573 Venezuelan musicians set world’s largest orchestra record
•Venezuela has set a new Guinness World Record for the largest orchestra with 8,573 musicians playing together for more than five minutes. The record was set by the country’s National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras, known as “El Sistema”. The previous such record for an orchestra was made by Russia when 8,097 musicians played together in St. Petersburg.
•The broadcast included a recording of Guinness World Records expert Susana Reyes announcing that the Venezuelan musicians had been successful in setting a new record after they played LaMarche Slave by Pyotr Tchaikovsky for more than five minutes.
5) Andhra Pradesh Bags Best Marine State Award
Andhra Pradesh has been named the best marine state in the country by the Department of Fisheries. The Department of Fisheries under the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying awarded best performing States for 2021-22 on 21 November 2021 on the occasion of the ‘World Fisheries Day, to recognise their accomplishments in the field and their contribution to the growth of the sector. The awards were announced by the Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Parshottam Rupala in Bhubaneswar.
Top States
•Marine states: Andhra Pradesh
•Inland states: Telangana
•Hilly and North East states: Tripura
Top Districts
•Best Marine District: Balasore in Odisha
•Best Inland District: Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh
•Best Hilly and NE District: Bongaigaon in Assam
6) CII to organize 20th edition of ‘Connect 2021’ in Chennai
•The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will organise its flagship event ‘Connect 2021’ from November 26 to 27 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Connect is an international conference and exhibition on information & communication technology (ICT). Theme: “Building a Sustainable Deep T’ech’N’ology Ecosystem”.
7) Pratham NGO won Indira Gandhi Peace Prize 2021
•Pratham NGO has been awarded the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize 2021 for its work on expanding the scope for education in India. Its pioneering work for more than a quarter-century in ensuring that every child has access to quality education. Its innovative use of digital technology to deliver education. Its regular evaluation of the quality of education. Its timely response in making children learn amid Covid-19 restrictions.
8) El Salvador Plans to Build World’s First ‘Bitcoin City’
•El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has announced that the country is planning to build the world’s first “Bitcoin City”. The new city is planned to be developed in the eastern region of La Union and will be initially funded by bitcoin-backed bonds. It would get geothermal power from a volcano. Bitcoin City will not levy any taxes except for value-added tax (VAT). One half of this VAT levied will be used to fund the bonds issued to build the city and the next half would be used to pay for services such as garbage collection.
9) SBI Ecowrap report projects India’s GDP for FY22 between 9.3%-9.6%
•State Bank of India (SBI) economists in its research report “Ecowrap”, has revised upwards the GDP growth projection for India to the range of 9.3%-9.6% for FY22 (2021-22). Earlier this was estimated in the range of 8.5%-9%. The reason for the upward revision is a decline in the number of COVID cases.
•The analysis suggested that “India remained unscathed in Q3 from the global situation, which is marred by supply disruptions, stubborn inflation and surges of infections during Q3 2021.” As per the report, India has recorded only an 11 per cent increase in Covid-19 cases during Q3 this year the second-lowest among the top 15 most affected countries.
10) A new book “India vs UK: The Story of an Unprecedented Diplomatic Win” by Syed Akbaruddin
•Senior Indian diplomat, Syed Akbaruddin has authored a new book titled “India vs UK: The Story of an Unprecedented Diplomatic Win”. The book features the behind-the-scenes details on India’s victory against the United Kingdom in the elections to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2017. Syed Akbaruddin, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN at the time, presents a behind-the-scenes account of India’s coming-of-age in world affairs through the prism of this momentous election.
11) Anita Desai awarded Tata Literature Live! Lifetime Achievement Award
•India’s one of the best-selling authors, Anita Desai has been conferred with the Tata Literature Live! Lifetime Achievement Award for 2021 to recognise her long literary career which spans over 50 years. Meanwhile, the Poet Laureate award for 2021 has been conferred upon Indian poet Adil Jussawala. Both these awards are presented to recognise exceptional work which has made a significant impact in the Indian literary field.
•The Twelfth Edition of Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest was organised from November 18th to 21st 2021. She has received several awards and honours in the course of her long-spanning literary career, including the Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Akademi Award and later Fellowship, and the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature.
The HINDU Notes – 23rd November 2021
aditya
23:10
📰 Authoritarianism is on the rise, says report
‘While 20 countries moved in the direction of authoritarianism, seven moved towards democracy’
•The number of countries moving towards authoritarianism in 2020 was higher than that of countries going in the other direction, towards democracy, the Global State of Democracy Report, 2021 released by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International-IDEA) on Monday said.
•While 20 countries moved in the direction of authoritarianism, seven countries moved towards democracy, the report said.
•“The pandemic has prolonged this existing negative trend into a five-year stretch, the longest such period since the start of the third wave of democratisation in the 1970s. Democratically elected Governments, including established democracies, are increasingly adopting authoritarian tactics. This democratic backsliding has often enjoyed significant popular support,” the report said.
•The report highlighted the case of Brazil and India as “some of the most worrying examples of backsliding”. However, India remained in the category of a mid-level performing democracy as it has since 2000, the report showed.
•“The United States and three members of the European Union (EU) [Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, which holds the chair of the EU in 2021] have also seen concerning democratic declines,” the report said.
•In non-democratic regimes, the trend was deepening, it said. “The year 2020 was the worst on record, in terms of the number of countries affected by deepening autocratisation. The pandemic has thus had a particularly damaging effect on non-democratic countries, further closing their already reduced civic space,” the report said.
•“The uneven global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines as well as anti-vaccine views undermine the uptake of vaccination programmes and risk prolonging the health crisis and normalising restrictions on basic freedoms,” the report said.
•However, the report also pointed out that many democracies had proved to be resilient to the pandemic.
•“Despite pandemic restrictions on campaigning and media space unfairly favouring Governments in some countries, the electoral component of democracy has shown remarkable resilience. Countries around the world learned to hold elections in exceedingly difficult conditions.”
•The International-IDEA, which is an inter-governmental organisation supporting democracy, was chaired by Australia and includes India as a member-state.
📰 Falling short: On data protection provisos
VISION IAS MAINS 365 Polity 2021 in Hindi PDF
aditya
08:39
VISION IAS MAINS 365 Polity 2021 in Hindi PDF
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Vision IAS Weekly Focus Forced displacement: A humanitarian crisis and a development challenge PDF
aditya
08:34
Vision IAS Weekly Focus Forced displacement: A humanitarian crisis and a development challenge PDF
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Monday, November 22, 2021
Insights IAS Main 2021 Exclusive Society PDF
aditya
19:48
Insights IAS Main 2021 Exclusive Society PDF
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Daily Current Affairs, 22nd November 2021
aditya
19:39
1) World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims 2021
•World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims is marked every year on Third Sunday in the month of November. In 2021, the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims falls on 21 November 2021. World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims 2021 theme is “ACT for LOW SPEEDS /ACT for LOW-SPEED STREETS”.
•The purpose of the day is to remember those killed and injured on the roads, together with their families, friends, and others affected. The day was started by the British road crash victim charity, RoadPeace, in 1993 and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005.
2) World Television Day is observed on 21 November
•World Television Day is commemorated on 21 November every year. The day is a reminder of the power of visual media and how it helps in shaping public opinion and influencing world politics. Television has played a significant role in the lives of people for years. It is a medium that provides entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip, etc. and helps in transmitting moving images in two or three dimensions and sound.
3) World Fisheries Day: 21 November
•World Fisheries Day is celebrated on 21 November every year by fishing communities across the world. It highlights the importance of healthy oceans ecosystems and ensuring sustainable stocks of fisheries in the world. 2021 is the fifth World Fisheries Day. The first World Fisheries Day was celebrated on November 21, 2015. On the same day, it was the grand opening of the International Fisherman’s organization was held in New Delhi.
4) President Ramnath Kovind Presents Swachh Survekshan Awards 2021
•President of India, Ram Nath Kovind presented the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2021 at the Swachh Amrit Mahotsav organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in New Delhi. 2021 is the 6th edition of Swachh Survekshan awards in which as many as 4,320 cities were surveyed. The cities are ranked based on three parameters, which are service level progress (SLP), certifications and citizen’s voice.
•Once again, Indore has been adjudged as the cleanest city of India for the fifth consecutive year. Indore is followed by Surat in Gujarat at second place and Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh in the third position.
5) Russia successfully tests fired Hypersonic Cruise Missile ‘Zircon’
•Russian Navy successfully test-fired the ‘Zircon’ Hypersonic Cruise Missile from Frigate – Admiral Gorshkov warship, which rightly hit the test target placed in the Russian Arctic waters. Russia destroyed its own satellite in low-earth orbit using an Anti-Satellite (ASAT) Missile named ‘Nudol’, which led to the formation of a cloud of space debris that could potentially destroy other orbiting satellites & the International Space Station (ISS).
6) INS Visakhapatnam commissioned into Indian Navy
•INS Visakhapatnam, a P15B stealth guided-missile destroyer has been commissioned into the Indian Navy at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai. This is the first of the four ‘Visakhapatnam’ class destroyers. It has been designed by the Indian Navy’s in-house organization Directorate of Naval Design and constructed by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, Mumbai. INS Visakhapatnam measures 163m in length, 17m in breadth with a displacement of 7,400 tonnes. It was commissioned in the presence of Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh.
7) Andhra Tops IPF Smart Policing Index 2021
•Andhra Pradesh Police has topped the ‘IPF Smart Policing’ Index 2021, among 29 states and Union Territories, released by the Indian Police Foundation (IPF). Andhra Pradesh has secured the first rank with an overall score of 8.11 out of 10. Telangana Police is in the second position with 8.10 points while Assam Police has secured the third position with an overall rating of 7.89. With a score of 5.81, Uttar Pradesh is ranked at 28th position and Bihar has occupied the last position with 5.74 points.
8) Geoff Allardice appointed as Permanent CEO of ICC
•The International Cricket Council (ICC) has appointed Geoff Allardice as the permanent CEO of the International Cricket governing body. He was serving as interim CEO for more than eight months. He replaces Manu Sawhney who officially resigned from his position in July 2021. Allardice, a former Australian first-class cricketer and administrator, was the ICC General Manager, Cricket for eight years. He had previously held a similar role at Cricket Australia.
9) Jason Mott won 2021 National Book Award for fiction
•The 72nd edition of the National Book Award was organized as a virtual event by the National Book Foundation. Jason Mott won the 2021 National Book Award for fiction for his novel “Hell of a Book”, a narrative about a black author’s adventure while travelling around in a book tour.
The HINDU Notes – 22nd November 2021
aditya
19:12
📰 Prolonged school closures due to COVID-19 pose threat to gender equality: UNESCO study
Girls’ time to learn affected by increased household chores.
•Educational disruption due to prolonged closure of schools across the globe will not only have alarming effects on learning loss but also poses threat to gender equality, a new study by UNESCO has pointed out.
•The global study titled “When schools shut: Gendered impacts of COVID-19 school closures” brings to the fore that girls and boys, young women and men were affected differently by school closures, depending on the context.
•“At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1.6 billion students in 190 countries were affected by school closures. Not only did they lose access to education, but also to the myriad benefits of attending school, at an unparalleled scale,” said Stefania Giannini, UNESCO, Assistant Director-General for Education.
•“Educational disruption of this extent has alarming effects on learning loss and school dropout. Beyond this, it poses threats to gender equality, including effects on health, well being and protection that are gender specific,” Giannini said.
•Drawing on evidence from about 90 countries and in-depth data collected in local communities, the report shows that gender norms and expectations can affect the ability to participate in and benefit from remote learning.
•“In poorer contexts, girls’ time to learn was constrained by increased household chores. Boys’ participation in learning was limited by income-generating activities. Girls faced difficulties in engaging in digital remote learning modalities in many contexts because of limited access to internet-enabled devices, a lack of digital skills and cultural norms restricting their use of technological devices,” the report said.
•The study pointed out that digital gender-divide was already a concern before the COVID-19 crisis.
•“The in-depth studies on Bangladesh and Pakistan in the global report revealed its gendered effects on remote learning during school closures. In the study on Pakistan, only 44 per cent of girls in participating districts reported owning mobile phones for their personal use, whereas 93 per cent of boys did so. Girls who did not own mobile phones reported that they relied on their relatives’ devices, typically those belonging to their fathers,” it said.
•“While some of the girls were able to use family members’ phones, they were not always able to do so. Their access was restricted since some parents were concerned that providing girls with access to smartphones would lead to misuse and could result into romantic relationships.” “The longer girls were out of school, the higher was the risk of learning loss. From April to September 2020, the share of girls reporting that they did not study at all increased from 1 to 10 per cent,” it added.
•Noting that the pandemic is a timely reminder that schools are sites not only for learning, but also lifelines for girls and boys – an essential space for their health, well-being and protection, the report has several recommendations on how to challenge gender-based barriers for participation in remote learning.
•“To advance equal access to gender-responsive and inclusive remote learning, it is recommended to provide a range of remote learning options including low-tech and no-tech solutions spearhead and support efforts to reach the most at-risk learners design, develop gender-responsive educational resources and tools besides providing appropriate teacher support and training use formative assessments to track learning outcomes,” it said.
📰 Life expectancy lower for urban poor, says study
